James Korte – Interactive Designer & Art Director

Tag Archives: weight loss

This Friday (January 11th) is the weigh-in and official start to my company’s annual “Biggest Loser” weight loss competition. This will be my second consecutive year of participation.

This year I’m defending a 2nd place finish and 17 total pounds lost. I know I can do better this time around and in an effort to keep myself accountable and honest, I am going to chronicle my progress here on my blog.

My friend Blueprint (Al Shepard) responded to a question I asked about mental/physical health in my Artistpreneur Series and his comment has been fluttering around in my brain this week as a I prepare for serious dietary changes:

Now I know that being in good health is a big factor in being able to do what I love at a high level. You can’t be good at anything if you’re hungover, or eating bad food, or physically a mess. You may have some successes but you won’t have the consistency until everything is in harmony.

I’ve done quite a bit of experimenting with how my body reacts to exercise and diet. I have found that for me, positive changes in diet makes a bigger impact than exercise. Even with intense exercise and no real change in diet, I have never seen a large amount of progress. With that in mind, I am planning to track my daily intake using Livestrong’s My Plate app.

It’s a 3 month (90 day) challenge, so my goal is to vary my approach to keep things fresh and to keep me motivated. Here are a few points from my plan of attack:

Hard stop on all soda and high sugar beverages

Cut down on/eliminate snacking after my last meal of the day

Eat protein in the morning

Limit arbohydrate intake (I generally eat pretty carb heavy)

Last year I ran about 15-20 miles a week during the competition. I am going to build up to that as I haven’t been running much at all lately. Lastly, I am considering a month-by-month gym membership in month two to up my efforts.

I am going to keep my starting weight under wraps until the end when I can share my progress, but I promise to share both numbers even if I fall short of my goal. I will share the data from MyPlate and RunKeeper a few times over the course of the competition because analyzing numbers can be fun (when it’s visual). That’s it. Tonight, it’s Fajitas and Margaritas, tomorrow chicken breast, salad, water and sweat.